Platinum Luxury Auctions will auction this house in Boca Raton’s Vintage Oaks community today.

A country club estate in Boca Raton, previously offered for sale for $6.5 million, will be auctioned today. Platinum Luxury Auctions will conduct the auction today without a reserve, or minimum bid.

Built in 2000, the Boca Raton residence has nearly 12,000 square feet of interior space and 4,500 of outdoor space, including a swimming pool, spa and air-conditioned cabana.

The property has seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms and two half baths. Its interior features include a master retreat in a wing of the main level, a two-story wood-paneled library and a custom-designed home theater, which cost $1 million to build.

Roger Shiffman of the Furby toy empire formerly owned the residence, located in the Vintage Oaks community of Boca Raton.

The lot size is about four-fifths of an acre, or 1.25 acres including an adjacent parcel, which is being offered for sale separately from the residence, according to Platinum Luxury Auctions.

Ikona Hotel, 3030 Bayshore Drive, Fort Lauderdale (Credit: Sun-Sentinel)

Occupancy rates rose at South Florida hotels in March, compared to the same month last year, but room rates declined in the tri-county area, industry tracker STR reported.

Hotels in Palm Beach County had an 87.4 percent occupancy rate in March, up from 84.6 percent in the same month last year.

Broward County hotels were 87.3 percent full last month, compared to 86.5 percent in March 2016.

The March occupancy rate at Miami-Dade County hotels ticked up to 85.7 percent from 84 percent last year.

But average daily room rates were lower in all three counties in March than in the same month last year.

Average daily room rates in March dropped to $244.34 in from $245.18 last year in Palm Beach County, to $180.51 from $185.57 in Broward, and to $233.36 from $250.71 in Miami-Dade.

Group business helped to boost March occupancy rates in Palm Beach County.

The number of hotel room-nights booked for groups and meetings in March nearly doubled in Palm Beach County to 11,081 from 5,705 last year, according to Discover the Palm Beaches, the county’s tourism marketing arm.

The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau reported a 3 percent increase in group business at Broward hotels in the first quarter, compared with the same period last year. [Sun-Sentinel] — Mike Seemuth

The Loggerhead marina in Riviera Beach

Dallas-based Suntex Marina Investors paid more than $50 million to acquire five Loggerhead-branded marinas in Palm Beach County from Jupiter-based Seven King Holdings. Altogether, Seven King sold 11 of its 12 Loggerhead marinas in Florida to Suntex, retaining only its marina in Stuart.

Suntex bought two marinas in Lantana and one each in Riviera Beach, Palm Beach Gardens and the Jupiter area. The Dallas-based company paid Seven King $25.8 million for its marina in Riviera Beach, $12.8 million for one of its two marinas in Lantana, $9.95 million for its marina near Jupiter, and $8.3 million for its Frenchman’s Marina Resort in Palm Beach Gardens. No deed has been recorded yet for the sale of Seven King’s  marina at the Moorings community in south Lantana. [Palm Beach Post] — Mike Seemuth

Henry Pino

Miami-based Alta Developers this month paid $14.4 million for an assemblage of land on South Dixie Highway near Dadeland Mall for a mixed-use development with 400-plus apartments.

Alta, led by principal Henry Pino, paid $11 million for a 1.45-acre industrial site at 9600 South Dixie Highway. The seller was WLPW2 LLC, managed by Wendy L. Whitmire.

Alta bought two other parcels for the assemblage. The company paid $2 million for a site measuring 6,250 square feet at 9514 South Dixie Highway. The seller of the site, which has a retail building on it, was W.B.H. Corp., managed by Ben Joannou Sr.

Alta also paid $1.4 million to Dean R. Sena and Cheryl Sena for a 3,125-square-foot parcel with an office building at 9516 South Dixie Highway.

Pino told the South Florida Business Journal that Alta Developers plans to develop a mixed-use building on the three-parcel assemblage with 420 apartments, a pool and a fitness center, plus approximately 20,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

Behar Font & Partners designed the 561,092-square-foot building, which would be located just south of the Dadeland South Metrorail Station. [South Florida Business Journal]  — Mike Seemuth

Trump National Golf Club

As the sun sets on Mar-a-Lago’s season, another Trump property is poised to take over the spotlight.

After Mar-a-Lago closes for the season in May, Trump is expected to make frequent trips to his typical summer destination of Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to Politico.

This has residents and business owners in the area concerned about some of the chaos left over from Trump’s frequent trips to Palm Beach: protesters, road closures, traffic, enhanced security, funding issues, and the general spectacle of the President of the United States coming to town.

“We’re kind of apprehensive, I guess you could say,” Nick Strakhov, a Bedminster land-use board member, told Politico. “It’s nice to be recognized. But on the other hand, if it gets to be tedious, we might start to complain.”

In recent Bedminster Town Hall meetings, concerned citizens have brought the issue to the forefront.

“West Palm Beach is a lot bigger than we are. Those people are a little more affluent than we are. Has there been any thought to that?” resident Jane Schumann told the all-Republican town board in March.

Bedminster already got a taste of what’s to come when the then-president-elect spent a weekend at his golf club last November, which cost $3,683 in local police overtime. Bedminster Mayor Steve Parker estimated in a letter to New Jersey Representative Leonard Lance that seven 72-hour trips could balloon that cost to $300,000 over a year. He’s hoping Washington will send a check to cover the extra expenses.

Parker admitted that his small town is in unfamiliar territory, but he downplayed the fears in an interview with Politico.

“We’ve got lots of folks who’ve got a little bit of notoriety in town, and it’s just regular business for Bedminster,” he said, referring to Bedminster residents Steve Forbes and former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean.

Southport Industrial Center at the Airport Industrial Park of Orlando (Source: Orlando Business Journal)

An arm of The Blackstone Group bought two warehouses near Orlando International Airport for $12.5 million, or $99 per square foot.

A unit of Blackstone called Equity Office Management LLC bought the two warehouses from an entity linked to High Street Realty Co., based in Boston.

High Street Realty had paid $10 million in 2015 for the two warehouses: the Southport Industrial Center at 10805 Southport Drive in Orlando, which was built in 2007, and the Palmbay Center at 10950 Palmbay Drive, built in 2003.

The warehouse acquisitions are among several Orlando properties that Blackstone has acquired this month.

Entities of Blackstone last week paid $175.25 million to Boston-based TA Associates Realty LLC for two buildings in the Church Street Station area in downtown Orlando.

Blackstone entity BREIT MF 55 West LLC paid $105 million for a 461-unit apartment building called 55 West and a 74,000-square-foot commercial building, both located downtown on Church Street.

Another Blackstone entity spent $70.25 million to buy a 432-unit apartment property called the Estates at Park Avenue, located at 2801 Biltmore Park Drive in Orlando. [Orlando Business Journal]  — Mike Seemuth

The Century Oaks estate in Clearwater (Source: Tampa Bay Times)

A 17,000-square-foot waterfront estate in Clearwater called Century Oaks sold for $11.18 million, the highest sale price ever for a Tampa-area home.

Mary Ann McArthur, an agent with Coastal Properties Group/Christies International Real Estate, who held the listing for Century Oaks together with Kerryn Ellson, declined to identify the buyer. She told the Tampa Bay Times the new occupants of the estate “are international … not movie stars or celebrities, just a very nice family.”

Property records still show that the seller, powerboat racer Hugh Fuller, is the owner of Century Oaks, a 102-year-old property overlooking Clearwater Harbor.

Fuller bought the estate for $5.5 million in 1996 from British Formula 1 racecar driver Nigel Mansell. Mansell bought it from Robert Brown, who invented the black paint applied to Model T Ford automobiles.

In 2013, Fuller listed the 10-bedroom main house, a guest house and boat house for sale with an asking price of $17.5 million.

When it failed to sell, Fuller tried to sell the property at auction in 2014 with a minimum initial bid of $8.5 million. Three bidders made offers, but none of them closed a purchase.

The new owner paid $11.18 million on April 4 for the main house and the guest house. Fuller retained the boat house, which spans 2,500 square feet.

A New York City developer named Dean Alvord built Century Oaks in 1915 on the site of a military fort in an area called Harbor Oaks, the first planned residential subdivision in Clearwater. [Tampa Bay Times] — Mike Seemuth

Rendering of Mystique

The developer of Mystique, a 20-story luxury condominium in the Pelican Bay area of Naples, selected Miami-based Coastal Construction Group as the general contractor for the project.

The developer, Pelican 1 Owner LLC, is an equal partnership between the Gulf Bay Group of Companies and international investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P.

The Gulf Bay Group, founded in 1986, has developed 14 residential properties along a 1.5-mile stretch of land fronting the Gulf of Mexico within the Pelican Bay area.

Site work for Mystique, including installation of underground infrastructure for water, sewage and drainage, is substantially completed.

The condo building will have 72 units, including four penthouses, with pre-construction prices ranging from $1.2 million to $9.5 million.

The development’s interior amenities will include a club room, salon, parlor and library, plus a theater, billiards room, board room, fitness center, and massage room with on-call masseurs and masseuses.

Premier Sotheby’s International Realty has the exclusive listing for Mystique and has staffed an on-site sales center at 6885 Pelican Way Boulevard in Naples.

Redfin reports that U.S. luxury home sales fell while prices rose in the third quarter.

Real estate brokerage Redfin reported that sales of U.S. luxury home fell 2.2 percent in the third quarter, compared to the same period last year, in a market with fewer foreign buyers.

“We’ve … seen banks in the Miami area raise lending requirements for buyers in Venezuela and other Latin American countries affected by the slump in energy prices,” Nela Richardson, chief economist of Seattle-based Redfin told Luxury Daily.

“Redfin agents in the San Francisco Bay Area report that some of the Chinese buyers they are working with have cancelled their plans to buy homes in the U.S. now due to concerns about the stock market,” she said.

Redfin reported that the 2.2 percent year-over-year decline in luxury home sales in the third quarter was the first annual drop since 2012.

Redfin also reported that, despite the slowdown in sales of luxury homes, luxury-home prices rose almost 4 percent in the third quarter, compared to the third quarter of 2014.

Richardson also told Luxury Daily that the stock market will remain an important factor in the luxury home market: “High-end buyers tend to be sensitive to stock market volatility while buyers in the rest of the market are not quick to react to it. Particularly in enclaves that foreign buyers are attracted to, we’ve noticed a change.” [Luxury Daily] — Mike Seemuth

Tech entrepreneur Kumar Malavalli’s $88 million mansion

From the New York site: Silicon Valley has topped Forbes’ list of the most expensive zip codes in America for three years in a row. The area has some of the most expensive homes and wealthy residents in the country — including a recently listed $88 million mansion. Here is a closer look at the most expensive home in the pricey neighborhood.

Rendering of Oasis at Grande Pines in southwest Orlando

Redevelopment of a former golf course in Orlando is scheduled to start this week with site work for a $40 million gated apartment complex near SeaWorld.

The apartment developer, Altamonte Springs-based Picerne Development Corp. of Florida, closed on a $32.7 million construction loan from M&T Bank and pulled permits last week to start building the 282-unit Oasis at Grande Pines near SeaWorld’s Discovery Cove park.

An affiliate of Picerne called Oasis at Grande Pines LLC paid $5.6 million on Dec. 14 for the 16-acre construction site, part of a former golf course known as the  Marriott Grande Pines Golf Club. The seller was an entity related to New York-based Angelo, Gordon & Co. LP and Florham Park, N.J.-based Ridgewood Real Estate Partners.

The 282 apartments at Oasis at Grand Pines would be part of a cluster of 1,100 residences planned on the grounds of the former golf course. Site plans include 260 lots for single-family homes, 176 for town homes and three separate parcels for 700 apartments.  The land is on the corner of Westwood Boulevard and International Drive in southwest Orlando.

“Not only is there strong rental demand for well-located infill communities, but Orlando is prime to develop new garden apartments due to the spread between cost and value,” Stephen Novacki, vice president of development at Picerne, told Orlando Business Journal. “It gives us a lot of options 18 months from now, when the project has its final [certificate of occupancy] and is stabilized.”

Oasis at Grande Pines will have one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, more than half with views of the property’s three-acre lake. Interior features include granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, security systems and USB connections.

Among the shared amenities are a footpath around the lake, a clubhouse spanning 10,300 square feet, a fitness center with a separate yoga room, a café-style lounge and clubroom, business center and gaming room. Forum Architecture & Interior Design Inc. is the project designer.

Picerne’s related Picerne Construction Corp. is the general contractor, and Picerne Management Corp. will handle project and property management. [Orlando Business Journal] — Mike Seemuth

Red Reef Park in Boca Raton

Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie asked the city’s beach and park district to buy all vacant beachfront land in Boca held by private owners to ensure public access to the beach.

The mayor’s push for beachfront land acquisition follows a controversial approval of construction of a four-story house on the beach at 2500 North Ocean Boulevard.

Haynie sent a letter last week to the chairwoman of the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park requesting that the district “identify all privately-owned vacant buildable oceanfront properties in the city and evaluate the possible acquisition of these properties by the district for preservation and public use.”

Arthur Koski, the executive director of the park district, told the Sun-Sentinel that Boca Raton has about five miles of beachfront, including three miles open to the public.

Koski said the other two miles includes parcels north of Red Reef Park that the park district might be able and willing to purchase. As Koski identifies private parcels of interest to the city, the park district will arrange to have them appraised.

The Boca Raton City Council voted 4-1 on December 8 to approve construction of a four-story, 10,000-square-foot house on the beach at 2500 North Ocean Boulevard.  The construction site is smaller than the minimum lot size required for a new house in Boca Raton, and approval from city council members was required for the construction work to proceed.

The city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment rejected the project twice, in July and November, before the city council approved it this month. [Sun-Sentinel] — Mike Seemuth

The Cayonetas Islands off the coast of Panama

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Turnberry Plaza

Turnberry Plaza in Aventura has inked two new tenants: Regus and Banco Popular.

Regus, the world’s largest shared office provider, will lease the entire fifth floor at the building, at 2875 Northeast 191st Street. The 12,000-square-foot space will open during the second quarter of next year, leasing agent Barrett Wolf of Turnberry Asset Management told The Real Deal.

Regus also has locations in Boca Raton, Coconut Grove, Coral Springs and Doral, among other South Florida cities. The company opened a second Gables location at the Columbus Center in September.

Banco Popular signed a long-term lease for 4,000 square feet at the property, which is undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation. International Sales Group also renewed its lease in a 12,000-square-foot space.

Wolf is the building’s exclusive leasing agent. Turnberry Plaza Ltd. owns the 10-story, 118,000-square-foot building, which was constructed in 1985. It’s valued at $19.7 million, according to the Miami-Dade County Tax Appraiser.

A 2009 photo of downtown Miami (Credit: Marc Averette)

Despite months of shrinking activity from all-cash buyers, Miami-Dade County had the most cash sales of any other region in the country during September.

Among all the county’s home purchases that month, 50.8 percent were completed without financing, according to a new report from analytics firm CoreLogic.

That makes Miami-Dade the most cash heavy market in all the United States — for September, at least. Close behind was Palm Beach County with a 50.6 percent ratio of cash sales, Philadelphia with 48.9 percent and Broward County with 47.9 percent.

For the past several months, cash sales in Miami-Dade have been steadily falling. That could be chalked up to a strengthening housing market flushing out distressed and foreclosed properties, which are most commonly bought in cash.

During September, 58.3 percent of lender-owned properties in Miami-Dade were bought in cash — but those properties only made up 6.4 percent of the county’s home sales.

Resales have the biggest impact on the county’s share of cash sales, as they represented 81 percent of all home sales during September. About 32 percent of those sales were done without financing.

As a whole, Florida still ranks highly for cash sales compared to the rest of the country. The state saw 45 percent of its home sales made in cash in September, falling behind only West Virginia with 46 percent and Alabama with 48 percent.

Nationwide, nearly 36 percent of all home sales in September were completed without financing. That figure has fallen 3.4 percentage points since September of 2014, and it has continued decreasing since the nation’s peak of 46.6 percent during the depths of the housing crisis in January 2011. — Sean Stewart-Muniz

1100 West McNab Road in Fort Lauderdale

Hostmark Hospitality Group, a Schaumburg, Illinois-based hotel developer, paid $13.75 million for an office building in Fort Lauderdale, county records show. 

Hostmark paid $166 per square foot for the building, or $46 per square foot for the land at 1100 West McNab Road. Case Holding Company, a Fort Lauderdale company managed by David Casoria, sold the property.

The 82,854-square-foot building was developed in 1970 and sits on a 6.8-acre lot, according to Broward County property records. It last sold for $3.25 million in 1998 and includes 525 parking spaces.

According to a Loopnet listing, the building is leased to ChildNet, a nonprofit community-based care agency, until May 2025. The two-story, Class B office building was listed for $15.395 million and then for a reduced $14.995 million. Michael Lapointe, Adam Greenberg and Michael Lohmann of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank were the exclusive advisers for the site, according to a listing flier, which marketed as property as an investment opportunity.

Hostmark, which has a satellite office in Miami, manages hotels and resorts in the United States and Egypt, according to the company’s website. It works with brands such as Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Wyndham and Choice. The firm also operates four restaurants in Illinois.

Hostmark financed the deal with a $6.5 million mortgage, Broward County records show.

An EB-5 visa superimposed on Manhattan (inset from left: Pete Sessions, Chuck Schumer, John Cornyn and Jeff Flake)

From the New York website: What do Chuck Schumer, Jeff Flake, John Cornyn and Pete Sessions have in common?

This isn’t the beginning of a bad Capitol Hill joke. The four lawmakers all championed an extension of the controversial EB-5 visa program in Congress, and they all received major donations from the industry benefiting most from such an extension – real estate. 

The findings, based on data from campaign finance watchdog site OpenSecrets, illustrate the ever-expanding role of industry money in U.S. politics. Schumer, New York’s senior senator, received $1.09 million in campaign donations since 2011 from real estate interests. His fourth-largest individual donor was Fragomen, a firm that claims to be “the world’s leading immigration firm” and has donated $82,200 to Schumer’s campaign committee.

Fragomen has a prominent EB-5 practice, and on its website claims to be “at the forefront of any current or impending changes made to the legislation.” Schumer’s donor list also includes Related Companies and Silverstein Properties, two development firms that have raised serious cash through the EB-5 program.

On Tuesday, Congress renewed the EB-5 program, which gives foreigners green cards in exchange for their investments in job-creating U.S. projects. The program has been widely criticized for funneling cash to luxury real estate projects in prime urban neighborhoods, rather than in low-income areas.

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Behind the story:

Related Companies
Silverstein Properties

In June, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) introduced a reform bill that would have made it much harder for urban development projects to qualify and would have raised the minimum individual investment under the program. Developers like Related, which raised more than $600 million in EB-5 money for its Hudson Yards development, opposed the changes and recently ramped up their lobbying expenses, as The Real Deal reported. The reform did not win enough support, and EB-5 was extended without any changes.

The extension was cheered by EB-5 firms. “Our champions – Senators Cornyn, Flake and Schumer and Congressman Pete Sessions – refused to give up,” Jeff Campion of Pathways EB-5, a firm that manages several so-called regional centers that play matchmaker between investors and developers, wrote in a blog post Thursday. “Please thank them through an email or phone call because without them, there would be no extension,” he added.

These four “champions” all received significant donations from the real estate industry. Flake, a GOP senator from Arizona, has raised over $340,000 from the real estate industry, OpenSecrets data show. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, has raised over $500,000. Rep. Pete Sessions, who represents a district in suburban Dallas, has raised only $50,000 from industry players, but they account for the second-largest share of his campaign donations.

These congressmen are in favor of reform, but the reforms they push for don’t address the real estate industry’s ability to use EB-5 funds for projects in prime urban locations like Midtown Manhattan and the Far West Side. On Thursday, senators Cornyn and Flake introduced a bill called the “EB-5 Integrity Act” of 2015 that calls for stricter oversight of regional centers and visa applicants, but the bill appears to have no provision to end the so-called gerrymandering of districts that allows developers to use EB-5 funds in areas like Midtown. In other words: developers would still be able to access EB-5 funds much like before.

Flake in October introduced another bill to reform the drawing of Targeted Employment Areas, or low-income districts where projects can qualify for EB-5 funding. But according to a blog post by immigration expert David North, the bill would “perpetuate the problem” of gerrymandering.

Grassley and Leahy, proponents of more far-reaching EB-5 reform who represent the predominantly rural states of Iowa and Vermont, raised far fewer funds from the industry since 2011 – $67,100 and $31,350 respectively. California’s democratic senior senator Dianne Feinstein, who blasted the EB-5 program, has raised a significant sum, $244,721, from real estate interests. But despite representing a state with several major urban centers, she has raised significantly fewer funds than the three senators — Schumer, Flake and Cornyn — who appear bent on allowing major developers continued access to the program.

Critics of current U.S. campaign finance laws have long worried that politicians could become biased towards the industries that bankroll their campaigns, tilting legislation in favor of well-connected corporations.

Grassley, the EB-5 reform proponent, seemed to make this point in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday. “This failure to heed calls for reform,” he said, according to the Des Moines Register, “proves that some would rather side with special interest groups, land developers and those with deep pockets.”

De Grisogono, a jewelry store at the Bal Harbour Shops, held a holiday fundraiser with the Chapman Partnership at the boutique.

A New World Symphony jazz trio performed at the event, which also included a display of signature pieces. Earlier this year, Bal Harbour Shops announced plans for a $400 million expansion and renovation.

The upgrades include a land swap, new entrance, wider sidewalks, a new canopy, landscaping and some new exterior walls. The project will also include the addition of Barneys New York, expansions of existing Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue stores, and new luxury boutiques. When completed, the shops will have expanded from 450,000 square feet to about 700,000 square feet. – Katherine Kallergis and Sean Stewart-Muniz

Pompano Citi Centre in Pompano Beach

Sterling Organization has inked two new leases at Pompano Citi Centre, a nearly 60-acre retail center in Pompano Beach. 

PetSmart will lease a 15,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by Office Depot and next to Macy’s, according to a press release. The pet retailer will also include an in-store Banfield Pet Hospital. PetSmart will open next summer.

Saito’s Japanese Steakhouse will lease 8,000 square feet on the second floor, above Panera Bread. The local chain has locations in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, CityPlace in West Palm Beach, Coconut Creek, Palm Beach Gardens and Wellington.

Jim Petrarca of the Shopping Center Group represented PetSmart and Bruce Corn of NAI/Merin Hunter Codman represented the steakhouse. Palm Beach-based Sterling represented itself.

The shopping center features 972,000 square feet. Sterling Value Add Partners, a Sterling fund, owns more than 400,000 square feet of the mall, which is anchored by J.C. Penney, Ross and Big Lots. The fund paid $15 million for the property in 2012.

Pompano Citi Centre, at the intersection of Federal Highway and Copans Road, was originally developed as Pompano Fashion Square in 1970, according to the press release. It was redeveloped into an open-air mall in 2006. National stores Lowe’s, Macy’s and Sears all own their properties. – Katherine Kallergis